A caretaker was critically injured Monday after a Bengal tiger bit him in the neck at an animal sanctuary run by actress Tippi Hedren, authorities said.

The 40-year-old man was mauled around 3 p.m. at Shambala Preserve, an 80-acre wildlife habitat in the high desert about 40 miles northeast of Los Angeles. He was airlifted to a hospital in critical but stable condition, said Art Marrujo, a Los Angeles County fire department dispatch supervisor.

Hedren’s publicist said the victim was Chris Orr, who was cleaning an enclosure when the 450-pound tiger named Alexander jumped him and bit him in the neck.

“He’s in stable condition, and we’re waiting to see how he reacts to the antibiotics,” publicist Harlan Boll said.

Orr, who is not the tiger’s primary caretaker, was cleaning the animal’s enclosure when he was attacked.

Hedren, who starred in the Alfred Hitchcock movie “The Birds,” founded the preserve in the early 1970s and lives on the property. It is home to more than 60 endangered big cats. Most of them were born in captivity and were given up by circuses, zoos and private owners.